Red Sky in the Morning (39 page)

As they disappeared down the lane in a cloud of exhaust fumes, Betty came to stand beside Anna. Putting her arm around the young girl, she said, ‘I’m sorry I’ve upset your mam,
but I’m not apologizing for suspecting him. Have you noticed that stuff seems to disappear only after a weekend and only when him and his lad have been?’

Anna gasped and turned to face Betty. ‘You mean you think Bruce was involved too?’

Betty watched her with serious eyes. Then she nodded. ‘I’m sorry, pet, but—’

Anna pulled away from Betty. ‘How could you? Mam was right. It’s not them. It’s
you
, but you want everyone to
think
it’s them.’

‘Me?’ Betty’s face was red, not with guilt but with anger. ‘How dare you think that of me? Why, if Pops was still here—’

Tears glistened in Anna’s eyes. ‘Don’t you dare even mention his name.’

‘What’s going on?’ Rita said, coming across the yard.

Betty swung round. ‘This little madam is accusing me of stealing.’

Rita’s mouth dropped open. Then she laughed. ‘Don’t be daft, Anna. Betty wouldn’t take a ha’penny that didn’t belong to her. You should know better than
that.’

Now it was Anna’s turn to flush with embarrassment. ‘All right then, but she’s no need to go accusing others.’

Puzzled, Rita glanced from Anna to Betty and back again. ‘Others? What others?’

‘Douglas and – and Bruce.’

‘Ah, well now, there you have me because I’m afraid I have to agree with her.’

Now it was Anna’s turn to glance from one to the other as she said falteringly, ‘You – you do?’

Rita nodded. ‘Sorry, love, but yes, I do.’

Betty was gentle now as she could see that Anna was genuinely distressed and confused. ‘Actually, it’s more Bruce than Douglas, but I reckon his dad was in on it and all. He was the
only one with the transport. Think about it, pet. We had a spate of livestock going from all the farms around here, didn’t we? And then, for a while, nothing. All the time Bruce was away
doing his basic training. And then when he comes home on leave – three hens go missing.’

‘Bill told me yesterday that he lost a piglet last weekend an’ all. Same time as our hens went. The weekend Bruce was home on leave.’

Anna closed her eyes and groaned. ‘It’s not true. It’s not. I won’t believe it.’

‘I’m sorry, love,’ Betty said again, ‘but I think it’s more that you don’t want to believe it. Don’t you?’

Anna was quiet for the rest of the week. She didn’t ignore Betty and Rita, who did their best to act normally, but she was unhappy. She liked Betty and Rita. Her grandpa had too –
he’d thought the world of them and trusted them completely. But, she remembered uncomfortably, he had not liked Douglas or his son. Anna sighed. But she loved Bruce and wanted to believe in
him. He had gone away again, back abroad, and she didn’t want to write this sort of thing in a letter. If only he would come home on leave again, she could sort it all out with him and prove
his innocence. And Douglas’s too.

The week dragged by. She missed Bruce and now she missed her mother. But for the two Land Army girls’ insinuations, it could have been a happy week. Betty and Rita were good workers and
despite the atmosphere between them and Anna they still carried out the work as they always had done.

Privately, Betty said to Rita, ‘For two pins I’d walk out, but I’m doing it for Pops.’

‘Anna’s all right. I know she likes Bruce, but I reckon she’s wavering.’

Betty’s tough line softened. ‘Poor kid. She’s only young. She doesn’t know what to believe.’ Her tone hardened again. ‘But May’s old enough to know
better.’

Rita laughed. ‘Come on, Bet. You fell for him once.’

Betty grinned. ‘Nearly, I admit it. But,’ she tapped the side of her nose knowingly, ‘I never let myself get so carried away that I can’t suss out what they’re
like. And I soon started to see that Mr Douglas Whittaker wasn’t quite all he was cracked up to be.’ She sighed and added, ‘But May—’ She needed to say no more. They
both knew that May was so besotted with Douglas that she could see no wrong in him.

‘We ought to work on Anna,’ Rita said seriously.

Betty shrugged. ‘I don’t expect she’ll believe us. When her own mother is so taken up with the father you can hardly expect her to turn against the son, can you?’

‘It’s worth a try, even if only for poor old Pops,’ Rita said solemnly. ‘It’s what he would have wanted us to do.’

The girls’ plans to get Anna to see what they believed was the truth were dashed when May returned home three weeks later, flashing a wedding ring.

‘We were married by special licence, Anna,’ May said, her face glowing with happiness. ‘I’m sorry you couldn’t be there, but Douglas says we’ll make it up to
you. You and Bruce, next time he’s home.’

‘Well, that’s it, then,’ Betty said, folding her arms with a gesture of finality. ‘You’ll not be wanting us around any longer.’

‘As you wish, Betty,’ May said stiffly.

‘Oh now, come on, Betty.’ Douglas put his arm around her shoulders. She stiffened beneath his touch. ‘May’s told me of your suspicions and yes, you’re quite right
to suspect me—’

‘Douglas!’ May’s eyes were wide, but he was laughing.

‘Oh, I’m not perfect, May darling, I’ll be the first to admit it and yes, I do a bit of dealing on the black market, but I wouldn’t stoop to stealing. Specially not from
May. I’d be a fool wouldn’t I?’

‘What about that lad of yours then?’ Betty persisted. ‘Is he pure and lily white an’ all?’ she added sarcastically.

Douglas was still standing with his arm draped around her. His face was close to hers. As she looked up, she was sure she saw a fleeting malicious glint in his eyes, but it was gone in an
instant and she wondered if she had imagined it.

Douglas forced himself to laugh again. ‘No young feller of his age is pure and lily white, as you put it, but he’s not a bad lad.’

Betty moved away from him as she glanced at May. ‘I still think it would be better if we left. Now you’ve got a husband to help you with the farm work, you won’t need
us.’ There was the merest hint of sarcasm in her tone and everyone noticed it. Only Douglas guffawed. ‘Me? Milk cows and muck out the henhouse? I think not. Besides, May and I will be
spending most of our time in Lincoln. Won’t we, darling? We’ve got a nice house in view – a semi-detached in a nice part of the city.’ He turned towards Anna, as if suddenly
realizing he had not included her in their plans. ‘You’ll love it, Anna. And we’ll have your room decorated just as you’d like it.’

Anna smiled weakly and murmured, ‘That’s very kind of you, but I must stay here.’ She turned to Betty and Rita. ‘Please don’t leave me. I couldn’t manage on
my own.’ But before either of them could answer, Douglas said, ‘It’d be far better if you could sell the lot. This place is a millstone round your neck. A young girl like you
should be out having fun, not slaving away out here in the back of beyond. If it hadn’t been for that vindictive old man, you could be well off and having the time of your life.’

Anna gasped. ‘I love the farm. I’ll never sell it. Never.’

Now Douglas couldn’t hide his anger. ‘Well, you’ll be on your own then because your mother and I have no intention of living here.’

May bit her lip and glanced anxiously between her new husband and her daughter. But she said nothing. She made no attempt to deny Douglas’s words.

Anna’s dark violet eyes filled with tears as she murmured again, ‘Betty, please don’t go.’

The two older girls glanced at each other and, as if reaching mutual agreement, Betty sighed and said, ‘All right, pet. We’ll stay a bit longer.’

As it turned out they only stayed a few more months, for in the following May the war ended and when demobilization began, as Betty had predicted, there were plenty of men looking for work.

Anna’s heart sang. Bruce would be coming home and then everything would be all right.

‘I ’spect we’ll be going home soon, then,’ Betty said.

They had all been to the street party in the village to celebrate VE Day and had returned home to the farm tired, but elated that the war was finally over.

‘I don’t expect they’ll let us go just yet. Not till demob starts and there’s fellers back home to take our places,’ Rita said.

Betty nodded. ‘ ’Spect you’re right. They’ll tell us when, I suppose.’

‘You’ll stay till after shearing, won’t you? Even if we get new fellers, they won’t be as good as you.’

‘Could I have that in writing please, ma’am?’ Betty quipped. ‘I might need a good reference when I go back home and start looking for work.’

It was Jed who took charge at shearing time.

‘He’s a born natural with them shears,’ his uncle said proudly. ‘He’s won prizes for it, y’know.’

Anna was fascinated to watch Jed at work. He was firm but gentle with the sheep. There was no panic or rough handling, but his strength kept them under control as he rolled them over and began
to shear, the fleece falling off.

‘Like a knife through butter,’ Betty, standing beside Anna, murmured. ‘He’s good, isn’t he?’

Anna nodded. For a brief moment there was a lump in her throat. Things had not been the same between her and Jed over the last months and she missed his easy friendship.

‘Yes, he is good,’ she said and meant it about more than just sheep shearing. He had taught her so much, she realized. It had been Jed who had shown her how to fold the fleeces, Jed
who had helped her at dipping time when she had not wanted to plunge the poor creatures right into the dip.

‘You’ve got to do it, Anna, for their own sake,’ he’d explained gently. ‘You don’t want to see ’em with ticks or lice or, worse still, sheep scab, do
you?’

And despite the rift between them over Bruce, he was still here, still helping her, even though she had the uncomfortable feeling that he was now doing it more for her grandfather’s memory
than for her.

‘I don’t like leaving you, Anna,’ Betty said worriedly when the day came in the autumn for both her and Rita to leave. Their former, easy relationship had
never been fully restored since Betty’s accusations, yet both Land Army girls were genuinely fond of Anna – and May, too, though they were exasperated by the older woman’s blind
worship of Douglas.

‘Can’t she see him for what he is? A wide boy. A spiv. If only she’d listened to Pops. He knew, bless him. Oh, how I wish I’d never brought Douglas Whittaker here. I
could kick myself. If I’d thought for one minute—’ Betty said more than once, but never now in front of Anna. ‘And what’ll happen when Bruce gets home I shudder to
think.’

‘It’s not our worry,’ Rita tried to tell her.

‘No, I know. But when I think about Pops—’ It was all Betty needed to say for them to lapse into a sorrowful silence, until Rita said practically, ‘There’s nothing
more we can do, Bet. Time to go home and pick up our own lives.’

And now the day had come. Their belongings were all packed and they were in the yard waiting for the lorry that was coming to pick them up. Anna hugged them both in turn, all discord forgotten.
Tears were running down her face. ‘I wish you weren’t going. You’ve been wonderful.’

‘I just hope these two new fellers you’ve got are going to be all right.’

Anna smiled through her tears. ‘Well, it isn’t as if I don’t know them. Jed is still here – ’ she pulled a face – ‘well, now and again. And I went to
school with Phil – one of the new hands – though he is a bit older than me. Grandpa knew his family, so I know he would have approved.’

There was an awkward silence as if all of them were thinking the same thing. Luke would not have approved of May’s marriage or of the fact that Anna was longing for the day when Bruce
returned.

Betty nodded, comforted by Anna’s words. ‘They do seem nice lads,’ she said, ‘and at least if you say Pops would have approved of
them
—’ She
didn’t finish the sentence and what she didn’t say seemed to hang in the air between them.

‘Here’s the lorry,’ Rita said and there was a further flurry of hugs and goodbyes and promises to write. As the lorry drew out of the yard, Anna followed it into the lane and
stood waving until it turned a corner and disappeared from her sight. Slowly she walked back into the silent farmhouse and wandered from room to room. She would be sleeping here alone now and,
though the fact didn’t frighten her, she knew she would be very lonely.

Oh, if only
, she thought,
Bruce would come home
.

The months dragged on and another Christmas came and went. Whilst May and Douglas spent Christmas Day and Boxing Day with her, there was nothing festive about the atmosphere in
the farmhouse.

Anna did her best, cooking a goose with all the other Christmas fare that rationing would allow, but Douglas seemed ill at ease and fidgeting to get back to town. And May too no longer belonged
at Clayton’s Farm – if she ever had, Anna thought wryly.

There was no word of Bruce being home on leave or even of a date for his demob.

‘Do you think he’s signed on? He said he was going to.’

Douglas frowned. ‘He’d better not have done, else I’ll have something to say about that.’

Near the time of May’s birthday in May, she and Douglas arrived at the farmhouse unexpectedly one weekend.

‘Come on,’ Douglas said, ‘pack your case. We’re taking you back to town.’

‘But, I can’t leave—’

‘Of course you can. Phil and Maurice will manage for a few days.’ He smiled as he leant towards her. ‘And we’ve got a surprise for you.’

‘What?’

‘Aha, you’ll have to wait and see. Wouldn’t be a surprise if we told you, would it?’

Anna was still doubtful, but when May said persuasively, ‘Oh please come, Anna, you haven’t seen our house yet,’ she gave in.

‘I can’t stay long though. There’s sheep dipping to do soon and I don’t think the lads’ll manage on their own.’

‘We’ll see, we’ll see,’ Douglas said and Anna saw him wink at May. As she packed an overnight bag, Anna began to feel excited. It would be nice to go to Lincoln, to go
shopping. Perhaps they’d even go to Douglas’s cinema together and see a film. She’d like that. Perhaps that was the surprise.